Four divisions arrived at Batavia today. Another is unloading at Kiladjati. I will launch a deliberate attack at Batavia tomorrow to get an idea of what we are facing. Witpqs has 12-15 units there. Not as bad as at Singapore, but he has had time to build up his forts, so we shall see.

As to events since the last report, not much of note until today. Witqs has continued to throw the Dutch airforce into fruitless attacks. Their morale is bad, meaning they turn back after relatively few casualties, making it tougher for my guys to rack up the kills.

Rather than in the air, the action has been at sea and under the sea.

Witpqs has parked a number of subs at Kalidjati to try to sink my amphibious boats. He has scored a number of hits. One TB was lost, and two AKs were hit, though neither has sunk, at least yet. Today, however, he paid for his effrontery: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Submarine attack near Kalidjati at 50,99

On the surface, I sent my TBs over to Merak thinking the TF there was composed of PTs. Instead, it turned out to be a bunch of coastal minelayers. They were slaughtered to the last boat. The TBs meanwhile are becoming as good as any of my DDs when it comes to experience: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Day Time Surface Combat, near Merak at 48,97, Range 17,000 Yards

The first assault on Batavia didn't turn out too bad. 1-1 odds on the first go round. Disruption is up in the 20s and 30s, but I am going to attack again. To support the attack, I brought two Sentai of Sallies down from Singapore to do some ground bombing. Hopefully, this will raise the disruption of the defenders. One of the defenders evaporated during the firing phase. If this next attack does not bring about a favorable result, I still have another division unloading at Kalidjati that I will quickly be able to bring to bear. At most Batavia less than a week before it falls.

Stragglers from Bandoeng made it into Batavia, giving witpqs more combat power than previously. We only achieved 1-2 odds. Those divisions will rest a few turns and wait for reinforcements. The flak over Batavia was quite heavy (my bombers flew at 6000 feet) and I lost one Sally outright. Nevertheless, we did drop the fort level and the Dutch suffered more casualties than the Japanese.

Yet more AMc's make a run for it and are caught by Bettys that for some reason are using bombs rather than torps. Maybe the target is too small for torps? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Morning Air attack on TF, near Banjoewangi at 57,107 Weather in hex: Partial cloud Raid spotted at 43 NM, estimated altitude 9,000 feet. Estimated time to target is 15 minutes

I keep losing ships to Dutch subs making a last ditch effort to interfere with my landings on Java. Hopefully, this threat will recede once Batavia and Sorebaja are captured.

March 30, 1942

At last, Batavia is captured. The defenders retreat to both Merak and Butenbozog(?) I will deal with these folk and then turn my forces on Sorebaja. I guess it will still be a couple of weeks before we finish off Java.

I thought I would provide a picture update of the situation on Java to make it clearer where we stand right now.

After dealing with the refugees from Batavia in the west, our troops will move east to deal with Sorebaja. Meanwhile, I am bringing in a small force from Flores to occupy the eastern most bases on Java so that when Sorebaja falls, the troops there surrender rather than retreat.

After Sorebaja goes down, our attention will shift to Balikpapan, Palembang, the remainder of Sumatra, and cleaning up the Philipines.

Wenchow on the coast of China fell. The coast of China is now all Japanese down to Canton. I have pretty much achieved my objectives in China. I don't think, however, I will be pulling anyone out of there. I wish to have a solid defense. I may consider more actions around Canton, but I am fairly content with the situation overall.

I am still cleaning up the refugees from Batavia on the west end of Java. I am also getting ready for the assault on Soerebaja.

Troops are currently loading for an assault on Balikpapan. I will use three SNLF units for this plus bombardment support from 3xBBs.

Balikpapan fell today to a shock attack by 3 naval guard units. There were three enemy units there that all retreated to Samarinda. At Samarinda there are 7 enemy units. This means there are 4 enemy units that remain unfought. I don't know if my 3 naval guard units are enough to take them out, so I am sending the amphibious TF that landed them to Bandjermasin to go get another SNLF in order to ensure success. Only 9 oil and 9 refinery were damaged in the taking of Balikpapan.

Merak on western Java was captured. Thing is, some of the units that were there slipped through my grasp and made it to Batavia before my attack went in. So now my two divisions at Merak have to march over to Batavia to finish them off. I don't think they will launch an attack at Batavia, and if they do, I don't think it will accomplish much. I have an SNLF garrisoning the place with level 2 forts while those stragglers have no supply. This may slow the conquest of Sorebaja some, but hopefully not by much.

Over on Luzon, I have been bombarding and air assaulting Clark Field for months. A few weeks ago I noticed the flak had fallen off dramatically. So I lowered the altitude of my Sallys to 6000 feet from 11000 and had them start doing ground attacks rather than airfield attacks. I believe the defenders at Clark are out of supply and are starting to die off. His AV value has dropped by more than 100 in the last two weeks. I will keep this up until I can get a couple of divisions from Java up to Luzon to finish the job. I doubt very much the two divisions currently there are enough to defeat the Americans without help. Once Luzon is cleaned up, I can task a division or two with cleaning up the rest of the Phillipines. Cagayan will no doubt be a tough nut to crack. But my guess is that those guys are running low on supply as well.

Also following the fall of Sorebaja, one division will be tasked with taking Palembang.

Beginning in May I start preparations for actions against Western Australia.

I don't know how well they are going. I feel like I am behind the curve when it comes to the DEI. Putting off action in Australia until May sounds dicey. And lord only know how long cleaning up the Phillipines will take. I don't have anyone on Mindanao right now. I had originally planned on putting someone in at Dadjangis, but got wrapped up in the drive on Timor. By that time, it didn't look like it mattered; I owned the Celebes Sea without it.

The game is on hold right now as witpqs works out an issue with a teleporting Dutch unit.

In the meantime, I thought I would use this pause to provide an overall situation report on the state of the war as of mid-April, 1942. (More posts to follow)

My basic defensive plan involves creating clusters of level 4 airfields. Having multiple airfields of this size will allow my level bombers to fly at full effectiveness and it will be very difficult for the allies to shut down all of them at once. Thus, any invasion can be subjected to air attack from multiple airfields. (All my IJA level bombers are getting intensive training on naval bombing. It will not just be Netties that will provide anti-shipping support.)

Below is a rather self explanatory map of the situation around New Caledonia. The air hq at La Foa provides torpedo support to both Noumea and Koumac. I may move an air flotilla into Luganville. I will definitely build up level 4 airfields in the immediately surrounding hexes.

The regiment at Luganville can serve as a reserve force for New Caledonia should the allies decide to invade that island. I would not expect them to go after the New Hebredies before tackling New Caledonia, so the defenses on Efate do not need to be that formidable.

I do not expect the Fiji/Somoa area to be attacked. My guess would be that the allies would simply assault my flanks and leave Fiji/Somoa to rot. I would expect an allied counter offensive to target either the Solomons/New Guinea and or the Gilberts/Marshals. Nevertheless, this area needs to be defended.

My strongest defenses are on the islands closest to the perimeter. Thus, Pago-Pago gets a regiment (actually, the 65th Brigade) as do both the Tonga islands I have built up. For the Tonga Islands, I am using garrison troops that are due to be withdrawn in about 500 days. If they are still there at that time, I am not going to care if they have to be withdrawn, since they will have served their purpose.

I have two regiments at Fiji that can both defend that island and act as a reserve for Tonga and Somoa. Air HQs provide torpedo support for the cluster of bases around Fiji and Somoa.

SNLFS are on the outlying islands to provide security against having the allies take these islands with only a minimal commitment. If he wants them, he can obviously take them, but he really has to mean it. In the meantime, my airbases can be attacking his shipping.

The area that I am least happy with, and which I believe is one of the most likely targets of an allied counter-offensive is the area around the Solomons Sea.

The SPS value of the bases around here is rather low, making it hard for the Japanese to build up bases with their crappy engineering assets. Many of the bases are isolated from each other, as well, making it hard to form clusters of mutually supporting bases.

Regiments are based at the outlying bases to slow down the allies long enough to allow reinforcements to be brought in. I need to base a reserve at Rabaul along with enough transports to get it to the site of an allied invasion.

Right now, the only torpedo capable base is at Rabaul. I am also considering building a cluster of bases around the Shortlands and Munda. The Finschhafen/Long Island area also looks good for a mutually supporting cluster. The question is: how much time will I have to build up these areas?

Just north of the map presented below, Kavieng and Manus are also level 4 airfields and I am currently expanding their ports. Along the north coast of New Guinea, I am also building airfields, though very slowly.

There has been much debate about the importance of Darwin lately. Most of this debate seems to be base on experiences prior to path #2. After that patch, the ability supply Darwin has been severely restricted. So it may not be as important at previously.

I have not decided on whether to go after Darwin or not yet. My overall strategic goal is to isolate Australia from reinforcement and resupply. If that goal is accomplished, then Darwin becomes moot.

I have already basically cut off Australia from the east: all indications are that the allies are not sending any convoys through the Society Islands and to the south of the Tonga Islands. I need to send some scouts to confirm this. Probably some AVs (I got that idea from PzB). But as far as I can tell, there is no shipping moving on the west coast of Australia, nor around New Zealand or the Society Islands.

What that means is that whatever shipping is going to Australia is coming in from the west, either to Perth directly, or on to Adelaide. To thoroughly isolate Australia would require the capture of Perth, something I am considering. At the least, CoCos and Christmas Islands need to be captured. I will also be capturing the bases along the northern coast of Australia down as far as Exmouth whether I go for Perth or not. I will not target Darwin right away.

Nevertheless, I still need to be ready to counter any allied thrust towards the DEI coming out of Australia. To this end, I have already set up a strong complex of airbases around Timor and Flores. These bases are lightly held at the moment, but when Java falls, at least one division can be added to the defenses here, and perhaps two if I decide not to go after Perth. My defensive network also needs to be extended east towards New Guinea. As right now, there is no allied shipping traveling in the area between Australia and the DEI. The allies are rightly concerned that any shipping there can be attacked and sunk by Netties based out of Timor/Flores.

Even should I fail in my overall strategic objective of isolating Australia from the west, this complex of bases will be very difficult for the allies to deal with. They will not be able shut them all down with bombers out of Darwin, and trying to set up additional bases at Broome/Derby/Hedland etc. will be difficult without carrier support since the shipping would be vulnerable to air attack.

How much damage did your industry take in your recent round of bases taken in the SRA?

I am not sure, actually. Singapore took a little damage, but I don't remember. Batavia might have taken some damage too, not much. Doesn't matter because I am expanding the HI at those bases anyway. The HI at Singapore is being expanded to 68, while at Batavia I am expanding the HI to 42.

As for the Oil, Miri took no damage at all. I am repairing the oil there and I am up to 210 oil points right now. Tarakan wasn't too bad, but then witpqs started strat bombing it. Right now it is at 69. I may repair this. He has not strat bombed the oil in quite a while. My fighters were able to quite a bit of damage to his bombers, even his B-17s, plus I brought in a lot of AAA. Because of my experience with losing a number well heads to strat bombing at Tarakan, I have put off taking the other oil centers until Java was taken. So I have not yet taken the big one: Palembang. I just took Balikpapan and only 9 oil points were damaged. I am (hopefully) about to take Samarinda. Hopefully, the dice will be with me. Bengkalis was taken intact (it was empty). I am also going to drop some paratroopers on Djambi soon. It is empty so I don't expect any damage there. All the units in northern Sumatra are at Medan. I believe there are about 10 units there. And at Palembang, there are 11 units. So the dice still have a big role to play in my future.

BTW, up in Burma, not only did I take the oil field intact, but witpqs has not yet commenced strat bombing it. I don't know why. I have no intention right now of defending that field. I consider that oil field a write off. Nevertheless, as of right now oil is begin drawn all the way down to Singapore from that field!

An area that I am hoping will stay quite (for historical reasons) is the Kuriles. Historically, the weather in this region sucked and it proved to be a dead end. I don't know, however, if the game reflects this. So I still need to provide for a defense of this region. Regiments are digging in on the high SPS islands. I still need a reserve to be able to reinforce these islands should the allies decide to invade. But between the terrain and the forts, they should be able to hold out for a little while and make any thrust at the HI via the northern route difficult.

I am somewhat lost at to how to defend Burma and how much force I need. The situation has changed since Q-Ball started his game. It is much harder to draw supply into Akyab, Cox' Bazar, Imphal, etc. So an offensive through the jungle will be much harder. As such, I am more concerned about the delivery of seaborne supply into Akyab than overland delivery. I am also concerned about an amphibious invasion along the coast of Burma and the Kra Isthmus. So I am planning to have an air flotilla at Rangoon, and one further down the coast at Georgetown.

I am not going to defend the air over northern Burma right now. I might later on.

I only have 2 divisions in Burma right now. I am sure that is not enough. After the fall of Java, I will have some more forces I can move up here. I am thinking that at least 2 more divisions are needed. But I also want to have a regiment garrisoning Tavoy and some more people down around Alor Star and Georgetown.

Northern Sumatra and the Kra Isthmus seem very vulnerable to an amphibious assault. Victoria Point is an obvious target. It needs to be defended enough to slow the allies down until reinforcements can be sent there by rail.

Another danger would be an allied descent on northern Sumatra and/or northern Malaysia. These areas offer a welter of potentially large airbases and decent sized ports. To defend this area, I plan on relying on air bases around Georgetown to attack enemy shipping in the Malacca strait.

I don't know for sure, but I sense that air losses for both sides are lighter than in most games. I have been rather conservative with my use of the air force, as has witpqs. Ship losses are also probably somewhat lighter. I am very protective of my shipping and will not generally advance without air cover. I also did not put much effort into sinking all the shipping fleeing the Phillipines. My objective was progressing down to Timor quickly, not seeing how many ships I could sink. If I sank his shipping in the process, great. But the allies get lots of ships and sinking a bunch of his cargo vessels is not going to win the war for Japan.

I have stopped production on a number of airframes because I have sufficient numbers in the pool.

I am building MC-21 Sallys because I wish to use up the Nakajima Ha-5 engines. Once those are used up, I will switch the MC-21 factory over to producing something else.

The Dinahs are drawing down the Mitsubishi Ha-31 engines. I hope I can keep on building these without having to make any more Ha-31s. On 43/1 the Dinah upgrades to the III model which uses the Ha-33 engine. I am using my Dinahs as search AC. All my recon AC have been cross training on naval search.

When the game starts, the Japanese get three Aichi Ha-60 R&D factories. The only plane that uses these engines, however, is the Judy. So as soon as the Aichi became available, I switched two of those factories over to making more useful engines. Right now, one of those factories that was switched over to the Nakajima Ha-35 (Zero and Oscar) is still repairing.

Rather than build Topsy's as my transport AC, I am building Thalia's. This is because the Topsy uses the either the Ha-5 (model I) or the Ha-31 (model II) engine, neither of which is used for much else.

For the same reason, I am not going to build any Tony's when they become available. My R&D is focusing on the Tojo, Frank, and Helen IIa (has armor).

If there is one airframe that I never seem to have enough of it is the Sally IIa. I lose a lot of these guys to op losses because of their round the clock bombing of place like Singapore (when that was still allied controlled) Clark Field, Palembang and Soerebaja. Fortunately, my pilot losses are not nearly as high.

Now let's look at what I consider the most important screen for Japan in the whole game.

The region labeled "Honshu" here is a merger of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku since oil and resources flow freely between these three islands, so it makes sense to treat them as a unit. The single most important number for the game as a whole is the number of oil days remaining. At least in the long term. At the beginning of the game, the Japanese player needs to move quickly to start getting resource convoys set up since "Honshu" consumes resources at a prodigious rate. I have managed to stabilize the number of resource days at around 50. I hope to be able to start building that number up soon by organizing resource convoys from the SRA to the HI. Oil and fuel convoys will also start to be organized fairly soon and hopefully that oil days number will start to climb, or at least not fall any more.

Here is one more important screen for the Japanese player: how are you doing in producing HI on which so much else depends?

My HI pool is growing nicely. I have expanded the HI factories at Singapore and Batavia. Those bases will be getting more than enough fuel and resources from the nearby sources (it ain't called the southern resource area for nothing!) to keep them going up until the bitter end. It seems to me that the Japanese player should never expand HI in the home islands. Rather, the place to expand HI is down in the SRA were the fuel and resources needed to run the HI factories is located.

After having read some threads on this forum, I am starting think I may be able to start shutting down armament production. I think I may let that number grow to 100,000. Maybe 120,000. But it is time to start thinking about saving those HI points.

Vehicle production, on the other hand, still needs to be expanded a bit. Not much, but a bit.

My philosophy on merchant shipyard points is to run the tiniest of surpluses while keeping everything building. Often, what these means is that I am accelerating the big 30 durability tankers up until they actually start building, at which point at set them back to a normal build rate. I am seeing a steady flow of ships come down off the ways.

Our game has been updated to the latest patch. This seems to have fixed witpqs's problem.

The major events of these turns have been the preparation for the capture of Palembang and the assault on Sorebaja.

The last units on the west end of Java have now been eliminated. One of the divisions at Batavia is now boarding ships to head to Osthaven on the southern tip of Sumatra. Osthaven was captured by an SNLF a few turns ago. That unit is now marching on Palembang. Hopefully, it will reach the base next to Palembang quickly. I can then send the division that I will land at Osthaven over there by rail, thus speeding up the tempo of operations there.

Paratroopers are at Singapore preparing to drop on Djambi.

Four SNLF units are just about to cross the river from Balikpapan to Samarinda. I hope the shock attack dislodges the defenders on the first to round.

The attacks on Sorebaja have been going very well. There were level 4 forts there, but they have now dropped to level 2 and the Dutch have taken a very large number of casualties. I won't need all 6 divisions on Java to take the place. The four I am using will be enough, even though I am going to rest them for a couple of turns since their disruption has gotten rather high.

A note on the undersea war: I hate subs. They are so much work to manage. Even with the new patrol zone feature, they are still a lot of work. I wish the game had such a thing as "patrol boxes" that you could assign your subs to. Then all you would have to do would be to set up a box and then assign subs to that box. None of this setting up patrol boundaries stuff. You could set up large or small boxes, and then assign more or less subs to the box.

At any rate, witpqs has shown more aptitude at submarine ops than I have. He has ASW groups hunting down my subs in various regions, such as near India, Western Australia, and on the west coast of the U.S. And he has spent a lot more time managing his subs and their patrol zones (or at least it seems that way) than I have. Not that I have really lost that many ships since Batavia was secured. I try to routed my TFs around known danger zones and always have escorts.

All in all, submarine management is one of the micro-management headaches I wish we could do without.

Samarinda was captured today. The dice, however, were not with me. 48 oil centers were damaged, about 50%! I hope the RNG gods are kinder to me at Palembang. To try to influence them in my favor, I am going to start ground bombing Palembang around the clock in preparation for the attack there.

Another attack is planned for Soerebaja for tomorrow.

KB1 with Shokaku, Zuikaku, Soryu, Hiryu and Ruyjo left Truk today for the DEI. I am marshalling forces at Java for operations aimed at western Australia. I am also buying out all the armor regiments in Manchuria and China and sending them south. The RF batallions (47mm anti-tank guns) have also been shipped from the HI to Java. My plans for this theater have not been finalized, but I at least know the types of forces I will need.

The first big shipment of fuel from the SRA to the HI is loading at Singapore right now. This TF will carry 150,000 tons of fuel. I have 110 days of fuel in the HI right now. Hopefully, this first shipment will raise that number significantly.

Sorebaja fell to the Imperial forces today. The oil center took 30 points damage out of 190. Large amounts of shipping are heading to Soerebaja to pick up the troops there for operations elsewhere. First on the hit parade will be cleaning up the pocket on Luzon.

Altogether, I have 6 divisions on Java. One is loading up to head to Osthaven and then on to Palembang. Another division will be tasked with taking Medan. Three divisions will go to Luzon where they will join the two divisions there to clean up the allied pocket at Clark Field. The allied troops at Clark appear to be out of supply and so I would not expect that operation to take too long. One division is sailing from Korea to Singapore right now.

I need to take Christmas and Cocos Islands. I will also be taking out northern Australian bases such as Hedland, Broome, Derby, etc. All of this is prepatory to actions aimed at Perth.

My general principal is to use the largest ships available in order to cut down on the number of ships. This is meant to save fuel. The schematic laid out here is based on expanding some of the ports and is not available when the game starts. For instance, Fusan has been expanded to size 8, its maximum.

Most convoys have their own dedicated unloading port. This is so that they do not interfere with each other and prevent another convoy from docking. Undocked ships load and unload extremely slowly. So, for instance, the Port Arthur convoy goes to Fuokoka, while the Fusan convoy goes to the next port over, Shimoseki.

The Formosa convoy is less than full size because if it were larger, it would simply drain Formosa of all its resources.

These convoys are going to be supplemented by resource coming in from the SRA.

This convoy set up has kept the resource level on the Home Islands relatively constant at 50 days supply.

The SRA has numerous smaller resource centers scattered around the Java Sea. My plan here is to pick up these resources and dump them on Java where they will then be collected into one large convoy for shipment to the home islands.

Singapore is another point where large amounts of resources gather. I have two resource convoys moving between Singapore and Nagasaki. These convoys serve a dual purpose. Not only do they deliver resources to the Home Islands, but they bring back supply on the return trip to Singapore. From Singapore, that supply can then be sent out to nearby bases that need it. These convoys carry about 100,000 tons a piece.

On the 23rd paratroopers dropped on Djambi and captured the base. Only 5 oil centers were damaged.

A division is currently unloading at Oosthaven. Should be unloaded in at most two days.

Forces continue to marshal at Sorebaja.

A division from Korea is unloading at Batangas to help with the reduction of Clark. Recon says there are now only 40 units there. For the longest time there were 42. Are they starting to die off for lack of supply? Allied AV is now down to 1700. When the siege started it was around 2000.

Our division tasked with taking Palembang has reached the adjacent base. It is still in strat move mode and will take two days to unpack. Once this division finishes with Palembang it will be shipped to northern Sumatra to capture Medan.

I have been ground bombing Palembang with the hope of damaging some of the engineers there so that not as many oil centers are damaged when I take the place. (The flak has been heavy and I have lost a number of Sally's.) Today's raid proved to be a massive security breach. I am moving KB1 to Batavia before sending it off into the Indian Ocean. Fighters from the Soryu and Hiryu, which are set to escort decided to try to escort one of the bombing runs on Palembang. Witpqs now knows where at least two of my carriers are.

Two divisions at Soerebaja are loading up for shipment to Luzon. This will give me 5 divisions for the final assault on Clark Field. Allied AV there continues to drop.